"I cannot live without books." - Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams
"Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed." -- Dwight David Eisenhower
"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."- George W. Bush
Shelfari Member since 14 October 2007
I am a retired Birmingham firefighter, currently serving in the Air Force, and a lifelong reader. I read everything from the Classics to Trash. Favorite genres include the Classics, Mysteries, Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Classics, Humor and Historical novels. With very few exceptions, I'm limiting my Shelf to books I've read from High School to present - although I'm sure that the Hardy Boys, Tom Sawyer, Doc Savage, Curious George, Dick, Jane, Sally, and countless others have all contributed to make me the Man that (virtually) stands before you today.
The books currently loaded onto My Shelf are all books that I have read, or in the case of reference books, those that I peruse on a regular basis, my Favorites are books that for one reason or another, particularly affected me, Books I'm Reading is composed of books I've read this calendar year, and My Wish List is books that I do not own, but hope to obtain in the near future. Like many of you I have hundreds of books at the ready, to be read someday, that are not yet displayed on my shelf....Please feel free to visit my wife's page as well; she's KPS.
AlfredS
"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark." -- Victor Hugo
''There's no thief like a bad book'' -- Italian proverb
"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book." -- Marcel Proust
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written." -- Oscar Wilde
"A room without books is like a body without a soul." -- GK Chesterton
"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight." -- Robertson Davies
"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." -- Kurt Vonnegut
"Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting." -- Edmund Burke
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." -- Mark Twain
"More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read." -- Oscar Wilde
"Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature." -- T.S. Eliot
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read."
-- Groucho Marx
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
G. K. Chesterton
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
W. Somerset Maugham
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
Arnold Lobel
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